


Suspicious Minds

by Cocobandicoot



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, canon divergence - King as a former Boot Rider
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-05-27 18:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15030560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cocobandicoot/pseuds/Cocobandicoot
Summary: Benny and The King make a deal.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for my lovely gf @t45d, happy anniversary!

There’s as much danger to Freeside as there is to the Strip, the only difference being Outer Vegas doesn’t hide its ugly business behind glitz and pretty women.

The King respects and seeks honesty; that’s what he likes about Freeside, the draw of this ramshackle place over the easy living on the Strip that the other former tribes gave into when they sided with Mr. House.

The King can’t wrap his head around how the others can sleep at night knowing they’re under the watchful eye of a man they’ve never even seen--to the King, it seems about as much a dishonest bargain as any. What respectable businessman hid in his tall tower behind an army of robots?

The King would never fall to the man’s smarm and deals, not that any are on the table anymore.

Freeside isn’t dolled up like the Strip, but they share the same beating heart, pumping black blood.

His city is disordered chaos and the target of the NCR and citizens of the Strip alike, belching out the drunks and the drug addicts that burn through all their savings at the casinos. House’s unwanted leftovers.

The King doesn’t mind that; he became the leader of this town to help people that the desert chewed up and spat out. It’s kind of like karma, in a way--giving back the little fortune that’s been given to him.

It is not the most prosperous of places, and they don’t always have adequate supplies, but that doesn’t stop the King from trying to help anyone who needed it. He's the King for a reason and he has the responsibility to look out for Freesiders, for their general safety and for their right to independence. The reality of the situation is always a little messier than that, but the _idea_ remains noble.

Freeside is going through a rough patch even by its usual standards, however. Outside of crumbling concrete walls and barbed-wire fences, war is brewing. Even here, they can feel it. Something has to give, eventually, and the King was no fool.

Another fight for control over the Dam is inevitable; the Legion can bide their time no longer. The NCR is still licking their wounds from the last confrontation, and the King suspects that even they are a little stunned at their somewhat pyrrhic victory. A fluke, maybe.

They will not survive another tango, and where will that leave Freeside? After the Dam, it will not take long for the Legion to flood the Strip. And to get to the Strip, they have to come through Freeside.

The King will bite his tongue through before he’ll admit it, but he almost hopes for an NCR victory over Hoover. At least they have a fighting chance against the soldier boys, and they will die quickly and with honor. With the Legion, however…

The King is no coward, but he's not stupid. In the best case scenario, they’ll be hung from crosses. At worst, they’ll be slaves. The King wouldn’t care so much about that (life the way it is, especially as a tribal, he’d been through treatment almost as bad) if it was just him. But if the others survived, how will the King possibly protect them?

It’s something he often thinks about, in his darker moments. When he seriously considers his options privately, when he doesn’t grin and joke and change the topic with Pacer.

Turning the thought over in his head at night, one hand on the thick glass case that made up the top of Rex’s head, the other tracing the outline of his gun beneath his pillow.

 _Would you kill them?_ He wonders to himself, feeling cold metal in his gut as much as in his hand. _Would you kill them before Caesar got to them?_ The image of him standing over Pacer as the Legion burns their city to the ground, Pacer’s hand grabbing onto his arm for some minor comfort, stability. Looking up at him with betrayed, uncomprehending eyes as the King puts the pistol to his head. _Would he do it? Could he?_

The image and the questions haunt him in his dreams.

All things considered, though, the King doesn’t regret that things are unfolding this way. He did the best he could, and he hadn’t become one of those yellow bellies living in their flashy hotels across the way.

Not that the King has much against them. Any way they want to live, the King will abide. Every man a king in his own right. Still rankles him a bit, though.

Tribes are hardly monolithic, but the Kings had known the Omertas back when they were Slither Kin and the King had been a Boot Rider, way before they’d become the Chairmen. Before—well. Before Benny had killed Bingo and the King had led Pacer and some other defectors to Freeside.

And the rest is history.

The King has always cared a great deal about authenticity and heritage and the like--the Slither Kin and Boot Riders ( _Benny_ ) have allowed the desecration of their own tribal ways for money and power. They hadn’t _adapted_ like the Kings but had... _bent_ under House’s will.

It just meant they can’t be trusted. Not as they are now. Making enemies, though, isn’t exactly the King’s goal for any future civil discussions with the Three Families. The Families have a somewhat contentious relationship--that’s what House gets for thinking that all tribals are the same--but that doesn’t preclude negotiations and compromise.

The King isn’t Family—not technically, given his renouncement of Benny’s leadership, but he’s still a ruler of Outer Vegas, which brings its own power struggles. He doesn’t like playing these games with the Families, but folding now means surrendering his hand, and the King isn’t about to do that.

Which brings him to the Tops.

Benny calls on the King early in the morning, sending one of the Securitrons with the news. He dutifully asks Pacer to see what the hubbub’s about, reminding him not to take anything the Chairman says too seriously.

And Pacer returns within thirty minutes, annoyed as usual.

By that time, the King is settled in the atrium, Rex faithfully at his side while his master waits for the day to really get going, for problems to be buzzing in and out of his warm regard until he calls it quits around midnight.

“He wants to see _you_ , boss,” Pacer grumbled, huffy for being sent on a fool’s errand but even more so at being blown off. “He told me to hit the bricks, so I did and they sicced the bots on me when I kicked their sign.”

“Well,” the King drawls, patient as ever, “did you happen to ask why they wanted me before you put your foot through their marquee?”

Pacer shrugs defensively, turning his head to the side. “Didn’t occur to me.”

The King can’t help but smile at his old friend’s antics. Sometimes the man is more trouble than what a man lesser than the King might tolerate. But running a tribe isn’t all just numbers and ratios. Not to him.

“I’m overdue to stretch my legs a bit. You keep things safe here, Pace, and I mean it--no funny business.” He tries to sound commanding, like it’s a chastisement for his earlier funny business with the Tops’ sign (which the King will have to apologize for, when he gets there), but he doesn’t really doubt his right hand’s leadership. “I won’t be gone more than an hour or two.” If Benny keeps his monologuing to a minimum.

“You got it, boss.” Pacer gets a warm hand squeezing his shoulder in response as the King passes, the man persistent in his casual affection--a habit of his since childhood when they had just been two friends, instead of leader and subordinate.

It isn’t all that unusual for Benny to call on the King specifically, but that is usually reserved for Family gatherings, when everyone got together to squabble over some Vegas-wide issue.

Discussing the fate of the Strip in these uncertain times has become a rather popular discourse recently. And even then, it’s just so the King can stay in the loop of the local politics. A courtesy more than anything.

 _What did Benny want with him alone?_ It’s no secret the man in the checkered suit always had something up his sleeve. Benny is one of those compulsive gamblers, but he doesn’t play with cards or dice.

The King has no interest in indulging Benny’s schemes, and he figures that Benny knows that, which is why he sent Pacer away. He probably thinks that if he got the King alone and wheedled enough, the chief will eventually relent. It’s only polite to honor the request and tell Benny to shove it in person.

The Securitrons tower in their usual spot on the farthest exit of Freeside and as the King approaches, the familiar hum of their systems fills his ears, a little louder than normal.

Mr. House had made these bots, and the rust spots on their titanium plating grows every day, it seems. Just how old are these things? No matter their age, they’re still as dangerous as the day they were created. He can’t see just yet, but he can smell it, the thick, electric smell of plastic burning and ozone. Another desperate Freesider trying to strongarm their way into the Strip.

The Securitron that rolls toward him obscures his view, but the King gets enough of a look. The ashes are no longer smoking, but the stench continues to linger. Had Pacer seen it, or had it happened in the intervening minutes it took him to return to the School?

The King comforts himself with the knowledge that at least the pile is too big to be that of a Freeside child, but the notion that he can tell the difference at all hardly sets his mind at ease.

He displays his passport to the enormous bot--easily head, head, and shoulders taller than himself, who is by no means a short man, and three times as wide at the broadest of its form.

Briefly, he considers if the louder humming comes from the bot’s defensive systems, still warmly thumping with life after such a recent “attack.”

He wants to hurry up and get this over with already. “You guys are so sophisticated,” he keeps his voice conversational despite the sick feeling in his gut he can’t quite shake, “you’d think that House would’a given you facial recognition processing, huh?”

He wants to step through (over the poor departed, another victim of terrible circumstance the Kings had failed to prevent) the gate already, get this whole thing over with. He has more, lots more, to worry about than some prattle with one of the chattiest Family members.

“We will take that under advisement, citizen,” the Securitron replies in its emotionless drone. The King’s heard that phrase before, with the soldier boys on the Strip and elsewhere—it’s usually code for _fuck you_.

He keeps his eyes averted as the gate creaks open-- _finally_ \--careful to step over the ashes. In time, the robots will sweep it up, and it’ll be like nothing had ever happened. The King will have to send out one of his men to crawl through the city to find if any families have a loved one missing. It won’t be a short list of folks, either.

Messy, terrible business.

The Strip, separated only by a wall, is like a whole different city. The lights shine brighter, flashing maniacally, and the voice of Mr. New Vegas pours into the street from mounted speakers.

Seeing the NCR out in droves always sets off an itch inside of the King, makes him instinctively want to reach for his pistol.

It is uneasy, being here: the atmosphere of closeness, of loud, raucous indulgence and bright lights and young, pretty women drew him in like a poisonous flower. But the long shadows and the angry whir of patrolling Securitrons and the inexplicable feeling of eyes on him--because it’s all a spectacle, the Strip and the people--gives off a strange, divisive feeling. Both a _welcome one and all_ and a _why are you here_.

Something dark and carnivorous is hiding under the gilded artifice, and here is the King walking right into the mouth of the beast.

The King won’t say he’s fixing to talk with Benny because the man never wants anything good, but it is best not to keep him waiting, for both of their sakes. The King has places to be and people to protect, and he wants to spend as little time in this place as he can.

The man that meets him in the Tops’ lobby is a brunet King knows in more recent times as Benny’s right hand man, Swank. Nice enough fellow, and more level-headed than his boss. Has always been, even during his Boot Rider days.

“Been expecting you, baby,” he says warmly in greeting, having to look up slightly to meet the King’s eyes. “Benny’s in his suite, you remember the way. Just at the end of the casino floor, take the elevator--but it’s an awful lonely walk, if you’re looking for some company with ol’ Swank, I wouldn’t mind taking you there myself.” Swank flashes that peculiarly suggestive smirk that all The Chairmen seem to have a knack for.

“I think I can manage just fine. Thank you, Swank.” He smiles easily and feels, for a moment, welcomed, however small in magnitude. The King doesn’t trust the Families, but the Chairmen are supposed to be the most honest of ‘em. Swank, at least, seems to act the part.

Before he carries on, though, the King reaches for his belt where his gun rests. As he’s about to offer it to Swank like an olive branch, the man shakes his head.

“Go on ahead, baby, we know you’re good for it.” Swank smiles again, this time in a way that’s more genuine, almost _shy_ , and winks. Tribal loyalty, even for a member that had long defected, seems to be alive and well.

A little surprised—Swank, at least, still considers the King an honorary Chairmen, which is….flattering, he supposes—the King sheepishly replaces his gun and makes his way across the room.

Swank trusts him not to kill Benny, then. Of course he (probably) _won’t,_ but he had thought that, out of an abundance of caution, Swank would at least take his weapon. It isn’t like the King doesn’t present a general threat--in this world of politics and simmering resentment, The Families are fueled by paranoia and violence.

Even the Kings may eventually try to topple the powers in place here on the Strip, and that may be a real possibility in their eyes: what kind of man wants to stew in lawless uncertainty, when he can be guaranteed protection with all the robots and money he can ask for? All you need to do is kill a chieftain and their handful of subordinates.

This display of good faith, then, feels almost like debt, weighing his gun in its holster. Or maybe a challenge—maybe Benny really considers him so little of a concern that he told Swank not to disarm the King. Humoring this backward greaser kook in Benny’s land of riches. He’s out of his element here, certainly, and even this unexpected trust throws him a little.

As he presses the call button for the elevator, the sound of decks being shuffled, roulette tables spinning, and drunken laughter draws his eyes around the casino floor. So many people, their chips clinking as they are dragged across green felt. More money in this room than the King has probably seen in his entire life.

With caps being as tight as they are recently, the King doubts he’d even be able to afford entry into the Strip had he not already gotten a passport.

He stews on that for a moment before the elevator doors slide open and he steps inside. Benny waits for him on the 13th floor.

 _Unlucky number_ , the King thinks. He finds it almost too bold that such a squirrely man as Benny would jinx himself like that, but then he figures that Benny doesn’t believe in such a thing as _too bold_.

The elevator doors thunk closed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pardon the long wait!! Hoping to put this story on a weekly schedule for chapter 3 onward!

The King steps out of the elevator, ignoring the way the ancient machine groans a sigh of relief. He’s been to this floor a handful of times since the wall was built; Family meetings are hosted in a special conference room on the ground floor of each casino.

For personal calls, though, Benny usually receives his associates in his room or the presidential suite.

The last Family meeting had been regarding the spoiled treaty between the Great Khans and the Chairmen—a foolish gambit for political power, however meager it may be.

Papa Khan may be a downtrodden man, but he’s still proud, and keen to boot. In that way, the King feels a vague kinship with him. The King had been a mediator, only there as a formality like most Strip affairs (and, he suspects, as a friendly face— _he_ bore no ill will for the Khans, after all), but he can’t deny he’s relieved that the Khans had refused the Chairmen’s offer.

Benny wants cannon fodder, and it’s no great secret that the man holds little fondness for the Khans. The Khans had been led astray too many times to lend their loyalty to a Family member that had helped chased them out of their homeland.

The Chairman had set his sights on sinking his teeth into them before the Legion could, _the enemy of my enemy_ and all that. Wouldn’t have been a bad plan if Benny possessed a moral compass or a human heart or even a brain.

Swank wasn’t kidding about the lonely walk. The floor is nearly empty save for a few patrolling guards; whether they are part of Benny’s personal entourage or not, the King can’t tell.

They give him a disinterested glance, but he feels his pistol against his hip like a brand. Six damn triggermen around him at any time—what does Benny have to be so paranoid about? The King supposes it has something to do with all the of the men he’s backstabbed in the past.

A problem of Benny’s own making, and a steep one at that.

It’s quieter up here than down in the lobby. There’s no piped-in music or laughter to mask the occasional creaking of the decrepit building. the Chairmen had renovated the place, probably with the help of the Securitrons, but even with fancy electricity and a new coat of paint, the hallways feel cramped, close, _dark_.

The King doesn’t trust dusty old places like this; it feels like he’s liable to fall through the floor at any given moment.

He gets that tight feeling in his chest again, like he’s walking right into the lion’s mouth.

The last time he’d graced Benny’s presence had only been a week ago, an abnormally short time given the sparse occasions Benny has called on him in seven years, regarding a matter outrageously stupid: fixing Benny’s coat.

He’d wanted to keep it hush-hush, and the King _had_ kept it quiet until he’d made it back to the School where he told Pacer and the others about it.

The nerve of the man was enough to get the King talking, but the request itself had been bizarre, too. Needlework may not be a real common skill on the Strip, sure, but the Kings are far from the only people who know their way around the craft. Benny had even paid the King for the trouble and maybe also as a collateral for his discretion.

The coat had been freshly bleached, adding further fade to the greying checkers, but the King could still see the dark shadow of blood arcing across the body of it. A vicious gash was torn in the shoulder, a twin to the smaller shred just across the belly. The man himself hadn’t been faring too well, neither. Whoever Benny had tangoed with knew all the steps, it seemed.

The King hadn’t asked because he hadn’t particularly cared, annoyed at Benny’s hasty summons and further chagrined at his clipped attitude in place of usual glib charm. Benny had gotten himself into a mess like he always did, and now he expected everyone else to help clean it up.

His coiffed hair had been messily slicked back, dirt scuffed on his face, didn’t even stand up to greet the King at the door. The closest to unkempt the King had ever seen the man in the last seven years—probably what added to Benny’s attitude. Vain as he is, he probably blanched at the idea of the King seeing him like that.

So the King had stitched up Benny’s coat, taken his money, and left with barely a word; for two men who relied heavily on their skill in persuasion and sweet-talk, the silence had been deafening.

The King knocks once, his hand already on the doorknob when he hears Benny call him in. No guards, the King notices.

He steps inside, finds himself reluctant to close the door entirely, does it anyway.

“Benny,” he says, the apology automatic on his lips. He’s been asking forgiveness for his friend since they were kids. He wishes for something less informal to call Benny, any way to increase the social distance between them. “Sorry ‘bout Pacer. He can be a bit hotheaded sometimes.”

Especially around people he doesn’t much like, but that includes most everyone. For the residents of the Strip, however, Pacer reserves an especially acerbic manner.

The King turns to face the room after he clicks the door shut to find Benny seated on the edge of his bed. The opposite end still unmade, as if someone just left.

What catches the King by surprise, though, is the fact that Benny is not wearing his familiar suit, the one the King so graciously repaired. He spies the coat in his quest to stop looking at Benny as quickly as possible, hung neatly over the back of a chair in the kitchen. Benny is, in fact, wearing hardly any clothes at all, just a thin white shirt and boxers.

“No problem for me, baby,” Benny responds with an easy grin, unconcerned with his state of dress. “Thanks for stopping by. Sorry for sending a Securitron to get you, I would’ve gone myself but I’m a little tied up at the moment, if you couldn’t tell.”

The King respects a man’s privacy, if only because it had been a luxury back in the days before his tribe had become what they are today. It’s not like he’s never seen his fellow tribemates in similar fashion, but that had been with people he trusted and cared for. With Benny, he’s torn between irritation and secondhand embarrassment.

But he _does_ glance over Benny with reluctance. The coat had been enough to give the King an inkling as to what had happened on that night Benny had returned, filthy and tired, to the Strip.

The wound in his shoulder isn’t as deep as the King might’ve imagined, but it cuts along the curve of Benny’s collarbone in a jagged, slowly healing line. It looks almost as if Benny’s attacker had been going for the jugular.

A vicious but efficient way to kill someone— _Benny would know_ —but not the way that most raiders would do it, given the abundance of guns, energy weapons, and automated chainsaws that would make such an attack more of a last-ditch effort.

It’s delicate, the skin angry red and swollen; the King can tell immediately that Benny had relied on himself to stitch up the gouge. The work is messy, and pinkish plasma oozes between the thread.

Bruises, dark purple and sickly yellow, peak out from collar of his shirt, suggesting that, once disarmed, they’d gone at Benny with their fists. And packed quite the punch, too.

His shirt is stained in the center with similar fluid; another knife wound, probably—almost like they’d tried to _gut_ him. What kind of maniac had Benny put down? More likely, the King thinks, what kind _of poor, desperate brawler_ had Benny put down?

So Benny is hurt, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to kill him.

The King sighs, rubs a hand against the short hairs on the back of his neck. Is this what Benny took him from his post to show him? “Medical treatment’s a bit out of my expertise. Skin’s a little different from fabric.”

He’s tired already and Benny hasn’t even begun with the sweet-talk. He adds, a little more kindly, “And if you got the wounds infected, sewing ‘em up isn’t gonna do much good. I reckon The Followers can fix you up in no time.”

He knows as he’s saying it that Benny would rather die of sepsis than go see the doctors at the Mormon fort, but it makes him feel a little better to offer the option. Benny can’t spare human kindness, but the King can.

“You think that’s all I want from you? Baby,” Benny grins like he’s letting the King in on a little secret. “I should’ve met you down at the bar, so you could loosen up a bit.”

Despite the wound in his stomach that obviously impairs his freedom of movement, Benny swaggers, unhurried, into the kitchen, where his fingers rests against the folded pattern of his suit jacket. “Not sure if I ever properly thanked you for fixing this up for me,” he says, idly.

“And you didn’t tell me why you needed me to do it.” He lets that hang in the air between them, but Benny does not take the bait, so the King continues, exasperated, “I don’t mean to me rude, but is there something I can do for you, Benny? I have a lot on my mind right now and I didn’t expect to waste time with you in your underclothes.”

Benny laughs, turning briefly to slip on his jacket, careful not to lift his arms up too far. When he turns back, he’s smirking a little in amusement. “Fine, fine, cool your jets, baby. If you want business Benny, here he is. Sit down, I got something to discuss with you.”

As the King moves to the living room—finally given the good grace to sit instead of standing uncertainly by the door—Benny glances up at him and winks. “ _If_ you’re willing to listen.”

Benny doesn’t altogether hurry to take his own seat. He meanders into living room and says, “I’ll give it to you straight, babe: we don’t know each other too well, do we? I think we got off on the wrong foot, you’n me, a long time ago.”

The King watches him because he has little else to occupy his interest. There’s an odd, close humming somewhere, on the edge of his hearing—some sort of air conditioning, maybe. “That’s because we don’t exactly see eye to eye.”

His mind is on the absurdity of this situation. Benny’s barely dressed and now he expects to have a normal conversation? “Benny, are you going to put your clothes on. I’m not keen on telling people how to live, but—”

“Baby, do I really got your cage rattling that much?”

“Benny,” the King grouses before he can completely restrain his growing irritation, “this just isn’t how I expected you to receive your guests.” Guests, because he can’t really say _business associates_ and _friends_ is laughably inaccurate.  

“Oh, baby, don’t act like that,” Benny pouts. “We’ve know each other for years, haven’t we?”

A man of contradictions—they’ve known each other for years, and yet, barely at all.

Bringing up their shared past has always been a topic they danced around, never truly acknowledging. It’s an implicit bond, something they recognize but don’t put into words.

For King, it’s because he’d much rather put that behind him, although it still rankles inside him.

For Benny, he assumes, it’s because the Boot Riders had been nothing more than a stepping stone for him, stomping on their backs to get where he is today. 

“I know Swank better.” The King almost snorts at the pause that gives Benny; it’s the truth, but Benny’s never been a dealer in _truth_. The King waves his words away, practically seeing the cogs in Benny’s head turning. “Look, Benny, you’re gonna try and play me like cards, I already know your way. I’m no gambling man and I’m not much for games.”

Benny has stopped moving now, his hands resting atop the back of the lounge chair. Watching, thinking. Waiting for his in.

“So, tell me honestly: what’s your offer?”

Benny doesn’t react immediately, seemingly the one thrown off for once. The King almost sighs in relief—Benny is all about power plays, this whole _setting_ has been one whole orchestration.

Putting the King off with his clothing, a state of calculated vulnerability to knock him off kilter, to confuse and irritate him. Like Benny had said, rattling his cage. The King’s desire to be respected above all else, and Benny seeming to slap him in the face with this.

The King just wants a normal goddamn conversation, for once. Which he won’t get, because Benny is smiling again, seeming to find his rhythm again. Changing gears, switching angles.

The King’s hardly subservient, but in their limited interactions, he usually just did what he was told because that was easier than arguing with the man. Taking control and attempting to put Benny in his place, then, had been an unexpected development.

He sits, finally, adjacent from the King, their knees brushing together. “Alright, baby, alright. Don’t get hasty, now,” the way Benny speaks now is smooth, cool, _all under control_ , “I didn’t know how to broach such a touchy subject with you, but I’ll come out and say it. Freeside—”

“If House wants to try his luck at taking it again, he’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands, Benny.”

“Baby,” Benny drawls, lightly admonishing, “You think I’m just Not-At-Home’s mouthpiece? Please. I don’t want Freeside and neither does he. It’s all yours. I wanted to spare your feelings, but Freeside _does_ need help, and they need it bad, baby.”

The King bristles, but altogether it is undeniable that Benny, the bastard, is right. The King pronounces, conscious of the feeling of being led into a trap, “You want to help me, then? Why’s that?”

Benny’s in his element, now. A man of words and risk-taking, reeling in his latest victim. “You prefer NCR squatters pushing out locals and killing your men? They’re good for business, baby, but business is good. I certainly don’t need those buzzards stinking up my block, and I know you don’t, either.”

There’s an edge of teasing in Benny’s manner that irritates the King, an over-familiarity that had yet to be established. Like Benny has any right to the King’s friendship anymore.

Still, though, the King can’t deny that it’s somewhat comforting, in its own way. Predictable. Benny’s a reckless man of raw impulse, but at least the King feels like he’s got him all figured out.

This dichotomy of the way Benny makes him feel makes a certain kind of sense. Benny’s congenial on the outside, but the illusion is so fragile. Underneath the skin, there’s nothing but greedy emptiness. 

It’s dangerous territory, being in Benny’s company. He’s a man but more like a virus, seeking out things to consume. His charm and foolish sense of hubris mask it, but it’s there all the same. Benny, to his very core, wants to possess, to control.

“And what are you going to do about it?” The King asks. “There’s enough murder in Freeside without you and your goons.” The King keeps his voice level, but cautiously defensive. Preemptively seeking to thwart Benny worming his way into the King’s favor.

“I’m not offering to fight your battles for you, but I can help you win them. You and yours don’t stand a chance against nobody the way things are right now and you know it.”

And he _did_ know it. The Kings wear leather jackets and carry 10mms. The soldier boys have bulletproof vests and rifles. Pacer’s always itching for a rumble, but the King stays his hand because—well, because he knows that Pacer won’t survive it.

Benny leans forward, drawing into the King’s space. “Look, I give you the armor, guns, money—whatever you need, baby. A war’s coming fast and you’re gonna need whatever help you can get, dig?”

No more dancing around the topic, then. The King has no way out, now.  “And what do you want from me?”

At his final question, Benny grins wide. The main event, what he called the man here for to begin with. “I want you to rejoin the Chairmen.”

If the King was the type to lose his shit, he’d have lost it. He doesn’t know if he’s offended or shocked or furious, it all blindsides him at once.

Out of all the things Benny could’ve asked of him, this—this was something he’d never expected. Benny had turned his back on Freeside and the way of the Boot Riders, had left the King and Pacer and the other defectors to fend for themselves in the violent wastes. And now he expects the King to come back into the fold, just like that?

He holds in the tight ball of emotion, compresses it down into something manageable. Takes a steadying breath. When he feels like his chest isn’t going to burst, he says, his voice low and quiet to prevent it from shaking, “Benny, you had your chance to leave the Strip and go back to the way things were before all this shit.”

Five years ago, when House came knocking on the King’s door, there had been a moment where he thought that maybe Benny would renounce House. That Benny would come to his senses. They’d all lived in and around the Strip their whole lives—House had already taken half of it, was Benny really going to let him take the rest of it without a fight?

Benny has no sense of sentimentality, no sense of kinship. An empty, greedy nothingness. The Kings had fought off the Securitrons their damn selves, scrapping for their lives as they always have. Pacer had gotten so hurt that he’d stayed over at the Mormon fort for weeks. He’d come back different and stayed that way since.

The King doesn’t want to lose his temper just now. Not over this. This is something that he’s struggled to make peace with for almost a decade. There’s no going back from what Benny did. So forward they go.

“You, me, Pacer, and Swank—we go way back, and I…respect that bond. But that’s in the past, baby. We aren’t Boot Riders no more and there's no going back. No one’s looking after the Kings but the King.”

He watches Benny watch him, a sharpness in the other man’s gaze behind the amiable gleam. “Why do you think I do these favors for you, Benny? It sure ain’t ‘cause I like you.”

When’s the last time Benny had even thought of the Boot Riders? Not all of them came to populate the Strip. Some have filtered into the Kings along the way, but where had the rest of them gone? Killed or enslaved, maybe, acculturated into some other, greater tribe?

Benny doesn’t lose sleep over it. The King never goes a day without wondering.

Benny’s dark eyes are unreadable as he speaks, quietly, “What do you want me to say, that I’m sorry? Baby, you think we’d be better chasing geckos and sleeping in tents? The Legion was coming for us then, and they’re coming for us now. Least this time we might not get strung up on crosses.”

“Don’t act like you were doing what was best for us.” The King can feel the old anger rising in him, but, in his more logical mind, he understands how foolish this is. Airing out old arguments like this is pointless. Can’t stop him from trying, though, if Benny is going to try and spin what happened like this.

Bingo has been dead for seven years. No trial, no justice. That had been the way of the Boot Riders as in the rest of the wasteland. The King had helped bury him. He wonders briefly if Bingo would approve of him, of what he’s done, of who he is—if he’s looking down on him, right now.

Benny stares at the King for a long moment, his eyebrows knitting together in brief confusion, before, slowly, his mouth twitches into a smirk. “Oh, don’t tell me, baby. You’re still sore about what happened.” He tilts his head at the King, thoughtful. “You sure are different, baby, from when we were Boot Riders.”

He says the name almost derisively, a private joke. A laugh on his lips—Boot Riders, kid stuff in comparison to what he is now, what he _has_ now. “And that ain’t a bad thing, you dig? I was hoping you would join us, you know, before the wall was built. I thought he’d kill you when you said no. Freeside back then was still prime real estate.”

Laughable. The two of them, hoping for the impossible of the other.

When the first of House’s Securitrons had come, the King had figured the same as Benny—that House would kill them for their insolence. They didn’t stand a chance against a wave of military grade robots, after all.

He recalls the shining resolve that if they were going to die today, then it would be standing together, shoulder to shoulder. Pacer had looked radiant that day, after they destroyed the Securitron, eyes shining with anticipation, bloodlust, rage—no fear.

It would have been a noble end, the King thinks. Rather than the kind of slow death that’s eating at them now, chipping away, little by little, every day.

Pacer doesn’t smile much anymore. Maybe still furious at being denied a perfect end, fighting for something he believed in with all his heart. The King doesn’t know what Pacer believes in anymore.

“House probably figured it was too much trouble,” the King replies, at a distance. His anger, quick as it came, dying down to kindling. The wind taken out of his sails, as he remembers that day. “Killing us, I mean. We’re like roaches.”

“House was afraid, baby.” Benny reaches towards the coffee table to grab a pack of cigarettes, flicks one between his fingers. “And for good reason. You and yours are scrappers and House knows that certain, ah, _tribal affinities_ tend to linger.”

The King resists the urge to roll his eyes. “House wouldn’t know a damn thing about loyalty. And neither would you.”

Benny frowns around the cigarette, entreating, “Oh, c’mon, kitten. Look around you, the Chairmen are living the high life, and that’s all thanks to _me_. You could be, too, if you gave me a chance to reconcile.”

He makes a gesture for the King to lean in. “Spot me for a light, baby, would you?”

Reluctantly, the King complies, cupping a hand around the tiny flame as Benny leans in. “And where did your lighter go?” He doesn’t exactly expect an answer, least of all an honest one.

“I’ll tell you everything, baby, the whole story,” Benny promises with a cheeky kind of mischief. “You want trust, baby? I’ll give it to you.” He turns his head to puff a cloud of smoke, leaning back against the couch languidly like a cat, minding, carefully, the stitches in his gut. “Just give me yours in return.”

Money, weapons, armor—that’s what Benny’s offering the King, as long as he comes back to the fold. And Pacer, too, eventually, he’d make sure of that. No more leaving family behind. He’s tired of that.

Not that he believes for a damn second that Benny’s being straight with him. But Freeside needs the help. The Followers are good folks, if not exactly the courageous and brawly type, and they’re being stretch thin for medicine and supplies. More and more of the NCR bastards are finding their way into the outskirts of town, fighting the locals for territory.

The King thinks about the man, so desperate to escape the hopelessness of Freeside, vaporized outside the doors to his freedom.

Resignedly, the King asks, “How do I know you’re not pullin’ a fast one on me?” Benny already knows what his answer is going to be. Probably has known since he invited the King here. Like he can even think to say no. Every question is just a stall for the inevitable. Benny has him now—he can lie right to the King’s face, and the King will _still_ say yes.

The King’s playing right into his hand, but what else can he do?

Instead of answering immediately, Benny rises gingerly to his feet. “I want to show you something, babe. He’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Don’t get tripped up by his name, he’s incapable of lying, even if it would help me.” He chuckles to himself, then, like Benny had any sense of humility. “But before that, let’s shake on it. You and me, are we square?”

He places the cigarette into the corner of his mouth, his right hand extending towards the King. Big, pleased grin on his face. The King can feel the walls closing in on him. _Into the lion’s mouth_ , he thinks, once again. The King’s being played like a fool and he can’t do a thing about it.

If it’s for the good of Freeside, _fine_. He can play along for awhile. Benny doesn’t know the King the same way the King knows Benny. He’s crafty, wily. Boot Rider blood still runs through his veins, after all. Benny, for all his killer instinct, had bled himself of that years ago.

The King doesn’t like playing mind games, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t good at them. Benny overestimates his gentle nature.

“I still got questions and you better have answers. Just ‘cause I agree to this Benny, don’t think that means this is the end of it,” the King cautions, slowly, looking Benny in the eye.

It’s not an idle threat. The King doesn’t have a mind to kill Benny, but that doesn’t mean he _won’t_. He wonders if Benny knows that, really, in his heart. Tribal affinity only goes so far, and a man like the King refuses to be toyed with for long.

“Of course not, baby.” Benny’s smile dazzling. “It’s just the beginning.”

He takes Benny’s hand. Benny claps his other one over top of the King’s, squeezes briefly, using his hold to pull the King to his feet. “Welcome back, baby,” he says, with a genuine enthusiasm that briefly overtakes his practiced façade. “It’s good to have you, we’re gonna need you on our side.” To what end, the King doesn’t know.

Riding high on his easy victory, Benny straightens, briefly crumples when the stitches pull painfully, and then makes a sign for the King to follow. As the King complies, Benny takes his arm, the same sort of overly-familiarity as before, but the King realizes belatedly that it’s partially to steady himself. Benny really _had_ taken quite the beating.

“Right this way,” Benny announces. Despite the pain he must be in, there’s a bounce in his step. A swagger restored from a successful bargain. Gambler’s high.

Benny’s an addict, the King thinks, only he doesn’t know it yet.

There’s a door that shouldn’t be here in Benny’s room, which leads to a hallway that also shouldn’t be here—a sectioned-off floor of the Tops, just for Benny.

“What’s all this for?” The King mutters, mostly to himself.

“One thing at a time, baby.” Benny’s voice is light, teasing, as he walks the King down to closest door. “First, you gotta meet Yes Man.”


End file.
